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A few days ago, the Yavapai Tea Party gathered at a church in rural Arizona to discuss the all-too-familiar topic of illegal immigration. Among the conservative, mostly over-55 crowd, it is a subject seen in black and white. Build a fence, add agents, reject amnesty — period.

And so it was all the more striking when, off to the side in a room with “Jesus Loves Us!!” written on a chalkboard, the conversation turned to the subject on everyone’s mind, if not the agenda: The conservative Arizona sheriff and Republican candidate for Congress who less than a week earlier had admitted to reporters, his constituents — indeed to the world — that he is gay.

Consider the comments of Bill Halpin, a 64-year-old ex-Air Force pilot who serves on the local tea party board: “I care less. I just care less. Don’t preach it on me. Don’t push it on me and, by golly, I respect your rights.” And this from Mona Patton, the 60-year-old real estate agent who is the group’s president: “I’m a Christian, but who am I to make a judgment about somebody else? I don’t have that right, and I look beyond that. ... I still believe in him. I still back him. I still like him. That doesn’t affect that.”

Before all of this, the 43-year-old was considered a rising star in Republican politics. A retired major in the Army National Guard and an ex-police officer, Babeu was the first Republican elected sheriff in Pinal County, nestled between Phoenix and Tucson in a culturally diverse part of Arizona. Having previously commanded a National Guard unit in the border town of Yuma, Babeu quickly became known for his tough stance on illegal immigration. He appeared alongside Sen. John McCain in a 2010 ad in which McCain advocated completion of a border fence, and last year was chosen as America’s “Sheriff of the Year” by his colleagues in the National Sheriffs’ Association.

(Phoenix political consultant Chuck) Coughlin and others noted that Babeu has a few things working in his favor: He’s charismatic. Arizonans like his stance on illegal immigration and other conservative issues, but they also genuinely like him. Several voters also said that the sheriff’s sexual orientation was one of the worst-kept secrets in Arizona political circles and that while they wish it hadn’t come out the way it did, the fact itself was hardly surprising.

I love the comments from teabaggers about Babeu: "I care less. I just care less (about him being gay)." and "I’m a Christian, but who am I to make a judgment about somebody else?". Ahh, the mental gymnastics required to support a closed mind. If they could only really hear themselves, they might learn something.

If Babeu wasn't such a star of the anti-illegal immigration movement, he would have been in a lot more trouble with his conservative base. Is it a sign of progress that teabaggers will support a gay candidate because he is "one of 'us'", even if he achieved "us" status, by proving that he is as contemptuous of "them" (illegal immigrants) as the rest of the teabaggers?
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So once again conservatives say.........."I don't support gay marriage. I don't agree with teaching 6 year olds that being gay is 'just another lifestyle'. I don't agree with hate crimes legislation."

BUT

I don't have anything against gays personally as long as they respect my views. I'll even vote for someone who is gay if I agree with what they believe and vote for on a political level.

AND DUers TWIST THEMSELVES INTO PRETZELS to justify and rationalize continuing to believe what they WANT to believe.

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I wouldn't say that I was shocked, but I did find teabagger support for a gay (anti-illegal immigrant) candidate illuminating as far as their priorities and where they draw the "us vs them" lines in the sand.

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...So once again conservatives say.........."I don't support gay marriage. I don't agree with teaching 6 year olds that being gay is 'just another lifestyle'. I don't agree with hate crimes legislation."

BUT

I don't have anything against gays personally as long as they respect my views. I'll even vote for someone who is gay if I agree with what they believe and vote for on a political level.

That's pretty much EXACTLY how I feel about it...for at least 10,000 years, give or take, marriage has always meant at least one man and at least one woman, if not necessarily just one of each, so why change now? And we don't teach kids that putting on fur suits to screw, or licking shoes while choking the chicken or flogging the dolphin is 'Just another lifestyle choice,' either, so why do it for gay sex? At the same time, I don't actually care if people do weird-but-consensual things, as long as they are on the right channel on the stuff that actually matters.

I am always bemused by the Left's insistence about how much they favor 'Gay rights,' but when they want to discredit someone, the first poo they fling is about the target's possible homosexuality.

That's pretty much EXACTLY how I feel about it...for at least 10,000 years, give or take, marriage has always meant at least one man and at least one woman, if not necessarily just one of each, so why change now?

Wow, you really worked on that one. So gay marriage isn't really a slippery slope to polygamy, polygamy is actually OK.

I wouldn't say that I was shocked, but I did find teabagger support for a gay (anti-illegal immigrant) candidate illuminating as far as their priorities and where they draw the "us vs them" lines in the sand.

This person is clearly a moron. He is surprised that the Tea Party of Arizona draws the line at us vs them between Americans and illegal aliens?

I don't kid myself for one moment that the Tea Party is chock full of anti-gay bigots and other morons, but they are Americans and the crisis in Arizona and other places in the nation is 12 million illegal aliens, the social, economic, environmental, and criminal problems they generate.

The people on DU are a small and special bunch. They really are. You simply do not encounter these people in your daily life.

I wouldn't say that I was shocked, but I did find teabagger support for a gay (anti-illegal immigrant) candidate illuminating as far as their priorities and where they draw the "us vs them" lines in the sand.

Why were you shocked? The only ones "shocked" by this are idiot liberals who swallow their master's lies about Conservatives. As for the use of the gay pejorative, figures.

This person is clearly a moron. He is surprised that the Tea Party of Arizona draws the line at us vs them between Americans and illegal aliens?

There is a clear line- Conservatives understand the difference between illegal aliens and American citizens. The clue for the hapless and stupid liberals is actually in the definition of illegal/alien/ and American.

I don't kid myself for one moment that the Tea Party is chock full of anti-gay bigots and other morons, but they are Americans and the crisis in Arizona and other places in the nation is 12 million illegal aliens, the social, economic, environmental, and criminal problems they generate.

Yeah, you do. The Tea Party is no more full of anti-anything than the liberal idiots out there in the anti-American, aka, DimoRAT party.

The people on DU are a small and special bunch. They really are. You simply do not encounter these people in your daily life.

See them here quite often.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.C. S. LewisDo not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:Ayn Rand

Wow, you really worked on that one. So gay marriage isn't really a slippery slope to polygamy, polygamy is actually OK.

I really don't care about polygamy, it is its own punishment, and it is a traditional marital relationship in the world history, not so much in the US but then our stretch of history is really pretty short and all early-to-modern Industrial Age. In fact it would keep polygamous families from having all the 'Wives' but one on food stamps and WIC, which is a scam that actually fuels the practice nowadays.

The people on DU are a small and special bunch. They really are. You simply do not encounter these people in your daily life.

I find that Moonbats in general are like this; this is what I have come to call Behar Syndrome.

After Sarah Palin was nominated for VP back 2008, Joy Behar on The View was shocked that such a woman could even exist. Joy Behar's world was Manhatten society and the Elites that lived there, anything west the Hudson was the lands of the barbarians.

Moonbats create their own little colonies in America ( mostly in dense urban areas) and if you live in small town in Nebraska, or have a cattle ranch in Texas, work at a gas station near a HWY in Ohio, you are one the lesser beings Moonbats have to control because you not as informed, educated, enlightened as they are.

In other words Moonbats some how believe it is right and duty to run the lives of others, i.e. YOUR LIFE